


Love, the secret that I keep

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Bisexual Steve McGarrett, Coming Out, DADT Repeal, Drinking & Talking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Steve McGarrett Deserves Nice Things, heavy spoilers for all of season 1, set at the very very start of season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 06:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18750964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: Danny has been shooting himI’m going to attempt to make you talk, just you waitglances all day, so it’s not much of a surprise when there’s a knock at Steve’s door an hour after he gets home. In other ways, it’s a huge surprise. “Since when do you knock?” he asks Danny, who’s standing in front of him, still in the same clothes he wore at work and carrying a six-pack of Longboards.Danny seems very convinced Steve has something to say. Steve is not entirely sure why (except for all the ways in which he is).





	Love, the secret that I keep

**Author's Note:**

> It’s fic birthed during Camp NaNo! This is an odd one, because I liked it a lot and then I didn’t and then I kind of did again, so now I’m just going to post it, because it finally feels as finished as I can get it at the moment and there’s bound to be at least one person out there who likes it, too. 
> 
> Also, heads up that this is another fic where they don’t do a whole lot except drink and talk, because Steve and Danny always seem to gravitate towards that when I try to write them. They just really, really like both talking and beer. I seriously appreciate that there was already an established Drinking & Talking tag on ao3, because that’s a very apt summary.
> 
> The title is a lyric from _Run Baby Run_ , a song by The Rigs.

Danny has been shooting him _I’m going to attempt to make you talk, just you wait_ glances all day, so it’s not much of a surprise when there’s a knock at Steve’s door an hour after he gets home. In other ways, it’s a huge surprise. “Since when do you knock?” he asks Danny, who’s standing in front of him, still in the same clothes he wore at work and carrying a six-pack of Longboards.

“That’s a valid point,” Danny says, and knocks his shoulder into Steve’s arm as he passes. It’s rude, but the way he does it makes something inside Steve want him to do it again.

Or maybe that’s just because it’s his general reaction to every time Danny touches him in any kind of way. He doesn’t dig into it too deep and instead closes the door.

Danny has made his way to the back of the room and disappears around the corner, so Steve follows him, confused but not about to argue. He’s had dinner and he assumes Danny has, too, so why Danny is making himself at home at the dinner table now is something of a mystery. Usually they’d sack out on the couch around this time, or maybe in the backyard if the weather’s nice and they feel like it. This, Danny sitting down at an actual table and sliding an open bottle of beer in Steve’s direction, feels like an odd clash of moods.

Steve catches the bottle before it gets too near the edge of the table. “Careful.”

Danny looks up at him, his blue eyes very bright. “So I hear DADT’s been repealed.”

Steve had thought he had no expectations of what Danny would want to talk to him about, but apparently he did, because this is very much outside the realm of any of them. He changes his grip on the bottle, pulls out the chair next to Danny at the round table and slumps down on it, casual as he knows how. He takes a pull from his beer for strength before he speaks. “Uh huh,” is all he can think to say.

Danny is holding a Longboard of his own, so he’s reduced to just one hand to wave around in frustration at Steve’s general being, or whatever it is this time. “Uh huh?” he parrots. “That’s the best you can do? _Uh huh_?”

“I’m, uh-” Steve is a lot of things, is the truth. One of them is a little intimidated by the way Danny leans forward, paying rapt attention, like he suddenly expects Steve to say something brilliant after all the times he’s insulted Steve’s intelligence in the past. “I’m glad they did that. It’s a good thing. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Danny repeats, and Steve really hopes that’s not how the rest of this conversation is going to go. Danny waves that hand of his around again like he’s conducting an orchestra that Steve never knew was hidden behind the potted plant in the corner of his dining area. “So, hypothetically, if there were something you wanted to tell the world – or even me, specifically – now could be the ideal time.”

“Uh,” Steve says. For variety’s sake, he leaves off the ‘huh’ this time. 

Danny raises his eyebrows, still staring at him, and chooses this exact moment to stop talking incessantly for once in his life. He’s a very mean guy. Why does Steve keep forgetting Danny can be such a mean guy?

He feels oddly trapped. He pulls at the collar of his T-shirt, glad he already exchanged the cargo pants and sneakers that he wore to the office for a pair of shorts and flipflops, because the temperature unexpectedly seems to have shot up a few degrees. He glances over his shoulder at the wall of windows and considers opening one of them, or maybe even the door to the backyard. 

“Steve,” Danny says, drawing Steve’s attention back to him.

“Yeah?”

The intensity of Danny’s gaze has gone down somewhat and he sounds less demanding. It would be a relief if it hadn’t come with a shuttered look, like Danny is hiding things from him now, which on balance is so, so much worse. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

“Yes!” It’s times like these where Steve wishes he could borrow some of those words Danny always seems to be overflowing with, even in silence. He _is_ okay with the repeal of awful discriminatory policies, of course he is, he’s _more_ than okay with it, but knowing that and getting it across to Danny in terms other than ‘I’m not an asshole’ – which is one of those things that always make it sound like you’re an asshole anyway – are two very different things. “I think it’s good. Really, I do.” He tries to put more weight behind the words this time, more conviction, and hopes Danny gets it.

“Right,” Danny says. His eyes take a round trip up and down Steve’s face, like they’re checking him for signs of deception, and then they relax. “Okay. I do, too.”

“Cool,” Steve says, feeling as tongue-tied as if he were thirteen and talking to his first crush. The situation is depressingly similar, considering thirteen is supposed to be two decades behind him.

“In fact,” Danny blithely continues, “I think it’s awesome. People should be allowed to love whoever they want.”

Steve nods. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“So you can talk to me.”

“I know.”

That’s not what Danny wanted to hear, that much is obvious. He’s starting to look frustrated, which is understandable, because that’s the way Steve feels, too. For pretty much the same reason, even.

He opens his mouth. For at least three full seconds, he hovers on the edge of spilling all his secrets. Then it’s been too long and he chickens out, putting the bottle to his lips to wash the unformed words down instead.

Something about the set of Danny’s mouth seems to convey that he really regrets being thoughtful and generous enough to bring over beer. Steve’s is nearing empty, but Danny has barely touched his own. Danny pushes it aside now to pull his chair in further, and then he puts his elbows on the table, hands folded flat in front of him. “Steve.”

“Yes,” Steve says, because that’s his name, and however stunted he may be, he’s able to respond to that much.

“Do you like men?”

There it is, plonking down on the table between them. It’s been coming for a while now. Steve watched it build, because in spite of Danny’s claims to the contrary he is not an idiot or from Mars or completely blind and he can pick up on social cues, at the very least when they’re thrown in his face like this. 

That still doesn’t mean he knows how to deal with them after. He looks at the polished wood of the table, at where he’s pretty sure there would be a dent if this gauntlet Danny just flung down were any less imaginary. “Why do you ask?”

One of Danny’s hands chops a rectangle in the air. “Oh,” he says, in a tone that warns that whatever is going to come next is going to be epically snippy, “I don’t know. I just thought asking each other uncomfortably personal questions is what we do. You never stop prying into my private life.”

Steve would object to that, except it’s kind of true.

“So, do you?”

_Do you?_ he almost asks, but that would be unfair, because Danny asked first. Instead he goes for one last, pathetic attempt at evasion. “You’re being very pushy.”

He fully expects Danny to turn that back around somehow and say something about how Steve needs a good push, possibly off a cliff or into an ice cold bath, or something along that vein. He’s not prepared to watch Danny’s face fall and his eyes skitter away as he completely backs down. 

Danny’s arms slip from the table. He sits back, crossing his arms, his shoulders dropping together with his expression. “Shit,” he says, as he scrubs a hand over his jaw. Bizarrely, he looks uncomfortable now. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Shit is right. Abort, abort – this is not what Steve wanted. “It’s fine,” he says, feeling frantic. And then, because his brain is catching up and it’s confused, “What are you sorry for?”

“I was so caught up in- Never mind.” That’s bad enough, but then Danny frowns and follows it up with, “Just forget about it. You really don’t want to hear this.”

Which is where he’s wrong, of course. There’s very, very little Danny could ever say that Steve wouldn’t want to listen to, especially when presented like this. If Steve weren’t so sure Danny is not at all the type to play mind games with other people’s feelings, he would think those words were specifically designed to draw him in.

As things stand, Danny just looks genuinely awkward, which spurs Steve to press on, because Danny was right about how much he feels the need to pry into Danny’s personal life, at least. “Caught up in what?”

Danny looks at him, groans, and drops his face in his hands, bowing his head further until his fingers are buried in his hair. It’s not something Steve has ever seen him do before and he can’t stop staring at the top of Danny’s blond head, or the way Danny’s strong fingers separate the strands and disappear in them. 

Then Danny speaks. “I was really convinced you were gay, okay?”

Steve reels back. The bottom of his Longboard makes a loud, hollow sound when it hits the table. “Well, I’m not,” he says, unthinkingly, and Danny winces. Steve wants to say more, but the wrong word comes out. “Why?”

“Why what?” Danny asks, even though he must know. He hasn’t lifted his head yet and seems to be attempting hypnosis on the smooth surface of the wood he’s staring at.

For a moment, Steve thinks uncharitably that Danny is forcing him to say the word now. Then he realizes this is probably just Danny employing the same stalling and evasion techniques that Steve has been using the entire time, and Steve is getting caught in the middle. “Why did you think I was gay?” He’s glad his voice doesn’t waver, despite the swoop of fear in his belly.

Danny gives an unconvincing shrug that’s hindered by the fact that he’s leaning his elbows on the table. “I guess I misinterpreted some things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Steven.” There’s misery in his voice. “You paid for a hotel room for me and my daughter for a full weekend at the Hilton, the day after we met. There were… signs.”

That has all the makings of an accusation, even though it probably isn’t. Steve feels like he should be explaining himself, so he tries to. “I got you shot.” He did. “I was apologizing.” He was.

Danny finally drops his hands to the table again and looks up, annoyed. “Right,” he says, slow and a little skeptical but not harsh. There’s a warning of sorts to it. It’s like he’s saying _hey, this is the time to stop me if you want to end this conversation_. 

Steve finds that he doesn’t want to end this conversation.

So Danny barrels on. “Like that time I was stretching and you watched my ass after you made me push your damn car halfway across the island? That was an apology too, I take it?”

Steve can’t get into the ogling thing because that’s way too dangerous. He evades, again. Together, they’re very good at dodging bullets. “I didn’t mean to make you push the car. It wasn’t supposed to break down.”

“No, you meant to take me for a drive that seemed suspiciously like it was going to end up with us parked in whatever Hawaii’s version of a popular teenage make-out spot is.”

That strikes fear into Steve’s heart. “It wasn’t a date.”

“Who said anything about a date?” 

“You did,” Steve says, because this is one point he thinks he deserves to score, at least. “What else would it be if it ends in a ‘make-out spot’?” He completes the sentence with actual air quotes, with a faint thought that it will definitely peeve Danny.

Danny moves his head in a way that looks like he wanted to do an eye roll but his eyes were too lazy to do it on their own. “Okay, then how about excusing your use of my daughter’s nickname for me with ‘it’s a term of endearment’? Are you going to tell me that wasn’t blatant flirting?”

For some reason, that’s the last straw. Objectively, the rest of what Danny has been saying might be worse, but this one pokes Steve uncomfortably right in the center of his heart. Danno is dear to him. His hand curls into a fist on his thigh, which is coincidentally also a good way to keep himself from reaching out and trying to take Danny’s hand in his.

“Oh, that’s rich, buddy,” he bursts forth instead. “You do this stuff too. Do you even realize how much? You suddenly said I should call you Danno all the time when I told you why I did it. You drew a heart in the air when our hike went bad, and you were staring, you were so staring when I took my shirt off-”

Danny, being Danny, doesn’t seem verbally intimidated in the least. “Which time? I’ve lost count, you nudist.”

“The time with the SEAL with PTSD on the museum ship.” _You’re serious and now you’re shirtless_ – those words stuck with Steve way more than any flippant comment ever should. “And then you called and asked me if I missed you, even though we’d barely spent an hour apart. That wasn’t flirting?”

Steve can feel the gust of air that Danny’s waving hands stir up. “Of course it was, you numbnuts!” Danny says, which hits Steve in the face in very much the same way. “Very kind of you to notice, a year after the fact.”

Steve already has his mouth open for more accusations – he has mental lists, more than one of them, and they’ve kept him up at hours of the night that he should have spent sleeping – but at this he stops short. 

He uncurls his hand. After his brief offense, he’s back to being in retreat again, but this time it’s not the mad dash it was earlier, but rather a confused stumble. “It was?”

“Yes!” Danny says. He looks and sounds exasperated, but very sure of himself, like his intentions have been clear to him the entire time, even if Danny’s nor Steve’s own were clear to Steve at all.

Steve recycles his question from earlier. “Why?”

“Why does anyone ever flirt with anyone, Steven?”

Steve can think of a good number of reasons, at least two-thirds of which he’s had as a motivation at some point in his life. Danny seems to realize this at the same time he does, because he shakes his head.

“You know I’m talking shit when I say I hate you, right?”

“Yes,” Steve says, even though right up until this moment, there was still a voice in the back of his mind saying the opposite.

It’s possible Danny hears the much less self-assured _most of the time_ hiding under Steve’s yes, because he pushes the point. “Listen, we barely knew each other when you went to the Governor to fix my visitation rights issues behind my back. Just for that, I’m going to like you a lot for the rest of my life.”

Steve feels something tingle in the back of his throat and mind and heart, all at once. He has the strangest feeling that it might be hope. “Your daughter told me you talk about me a lot,” he says, which is a complete non-sequitur, except for how it very much isn’t.

Danny picks up on the cue immediately. He narrows his eyes, but in a way that somehow looks considering and maybe fond rather than suspicious, and fires a shot back. “You said being married to a cop wouldn’t be so bad.” 

“You hugged me and said we’d become very close.”

“You came to Meka’s funeral for me even though you didn’t know him.”

They’ve got a good rhythm going now and Steve hates to break it, but he has to. “That wasn’t meant to be flirting.” It’s important Danny gets that. “I was just trying to be there for you.”

Danny slaps the back of one hand into the palm of the other, like he’s making a point. “I know! That’s what makes it even worse.”

Steve doesn’t know yet whether to be hurt, but his feelings are leaning that way. “How is that worse?”

“Because that’s not just sex, it’s love.”

If there is an adequate response to that, Steve does not know what it is. He’s pretty sure it’s not trying not to blink because that might make all of this disappear because it was a mirage all along, but that’s what he’s tempted to do. “That wasn’t even two months after we met,” he points out, lost in equal parts horror and wonder.

“Yeah, well.” Danny shrugs. It’s so stiff it looks almost physically painful. “I either have serious commitment issues or I go in way too hard. Rachel can tell you all about it.”

Steve loves that. He loves it, because it’s weird and messed up and probably a little unhealthy, but that just means that Danny isn’t a natural at this whole relationship thing either, which is awesome, even if it is so in a really backwards way. It makes Steve feel less horribly inadequate.

“I don’t want to talk to Rachel,” he says. He considers it for a second. “Or about Rachel.” That’s an important distinction to make, he thinks.

Danny watches him like that’s an interesting thing to say. Danny often watches him like there’s something interesting about him. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

An endless expanse of possible answers stretches out in front of Steve. He goes for what’s easiest – close, safe, familiar. True, always. “Us.”

“Steve-” Danny starts, in an uncharacteristically soft, careful voice. More words would probably have followed, good words, because almost all of Danny’s are, but Steve suddenly just can’t take it anymore. 

He can’t. He’s done. He doesn’t want to be classified anymore, least of all when it comes to Danny, who has always accepted every part of him unconditionally.

“I’m bi,” he virtually yells. He takes a big gulp of air. There will probably be finger-shaped bruises on his thigh tomorrow from his own iron grip. “But I like my job, so I’ve never said that out loud before.”

Danny looks like someone just clobbered his kitten to death with a baseball bat. “Fuck,” he says, which, yeah, that’s about right. “Do you want another beer?” 

Steve doesn’t even realize just how painfully rigid he’s been keeping his spine until some of the tension leaves. His leg hurts less when he carefully lets go and brings both of his hands above the table. “Please.”

Danny leans down to liberate a bottle from the six-pack on the floor, leaving it half gone. He uncaps the beer and hands it to Steve, who takes it, but is still occupied by the way their fingers brushed ever so briefly when he takes a pull of the drink. He swallows, feeling more buzzed than one and a quarter beer just after dinner should get him, and when he puts the bottle down, he finds Danny watching him with a peculiar, fevered look on his face. 

“What?” he asks.

Danny gives a little shake of his head, but then answers anyway. “I realize this is going to make you uncomfortable, but I have to say it, so I’ll do it quickly, okay?” 

“Okay.” Steve doesn’t know if it is. The question is putting him on edge, but he has to give Danny the benefit of the doubt. Surely Danny would not- He wouldn’t-

“Okay,” Danny says, eyes a little crazy, like he’s glad for it, because he might have exploded otherwise. And then, as succinctly as promised, but no less forceful for it, he adds, “I’m proud of you, you’re the bravest person I know, and I love you so goddamn much.”

Steve damn near starts crying. He manages to keep from completely embarrassing himself by clearing his throat. “You need a beer, too?”

The crazy in Danny’s eyes melts away into humor. It’s a much better look. “I wouldn’t say no to one.” 

Steve pushes the bottle he only took two sips of towards Danny. Danny’s first beer is still right there, discarded a foot away on the table and slowly going flat, but Danny doesn’t spare it a glance as he accepts the bottle Steve has already drunk from and puts his lips to it.

There’s a wild euphoria coursing through Steve’s veins unlike anything he remembers ever feeling before. It’s what moves him to open his mouth again and push, even though it’s greedy. He’s already gotten far more than he could possibly have hoped to ask for, but he thinks that might have been the crux of his problem – he’s never asked before. “Hey, you wanna, uh- Do you want to maybe, sometime, I don’t know, get a coffee?”

It’s a hopeless jumble of words. Danny raises his eyebrows at it, like a challenge. “We have coffee together every day, Steve.”

“I know.” Steve nods, but then he takes another look at Danny, and there’s a riot somewhere in his brain. The old management is thrown out, still clinging desperately to its outdated comfort zone, and replaced by a couple revolutionaries. 

It’s time for change.

“But this would be coffee where I could ask,” he makes himself say, slow and deliberate. “Or tell. If, if you wanted to.”

_I’m proud of you_ Danny said, and looking at him now, he wasn’t lying. “Yeah. I want to.”

“Good.” That’s as much as Steve manages before he has to steal the Longboard back from Danny and finish what’s left of it. When he’s done, he puts the empty bottle with his first, and asks another question, albeit less scary. That’s an unexpected upside to all this – every question for the rest of his life may be less scary. “Is that why you came here?”

“No. This was not flirting.” Danny’s eyes are a fraction wider than they should be and there’s something tugging, almost imperceptibly, at the corners of his mouth. The only reason Steve sees it at all is because he’s used to paying such close attention. It’s- Well, coy might be a good word for it, if bizarre. “I was just trying to be there for you,” Danny continues, like another set of breadcrumbs.

His heart, Steve thinks absently, should be racing. It’s not. It’s beating rapid but steady. “That’s even worse,” he croaks.

Danny grins at him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are, as always, welcome and wonderful. ❤
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 (and mostly McDanno) sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


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